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🧪 twenty-six. look for the light ☆ ⊹ ࣪.⋆༘˚⋆𐙚｡⋆𖦹.✧˚
It never snowed in California.
In places it did, but most of the time, it didn't because the state was notorious for its heat in the summer. Posters of models and new technology were peeling away from the buildings they were held onto. Fashion boutiques were ravaged by raiders and nothing remained within unless there were still clothes hanging off the racks. The Santa Barbra Pier was inactive of all activities yet the shops and restaurants were still standing despite the fact twenty years had passed. The wood of the pier was rotting too yet it still held up in the water. Most infected roamed around the streets of California without a care in the world, ambling around while clicking and groaning.
"This is bullshit." said Sabrina, uncomfortably tugging on her jacket and she readjusted her Firefly armband. "I mean, Trevor says that this lady would be in Avalon in a month or two, but it's been..what, eight months? This is a fucking ploy! I swear, somebody needs to put him in his place."
"Shh! Shut up. You don't want the infected to hear you. Besides, he said that she was pregnant. It might take her longer to arrive." said her husband, Matthew, and his hand nervously tilted his handmade shiv, his dirty blond hair shone in the sun light. His head looked around, seeing if there was any overgrown, infected vines that stuck out, or runners that were crouched over in the darkness.
"Matty, the fuckin' infected aren't worried about me complaining. We're gonna walk around for another hour or two and if we can't find anything, we go back. Say that we couldn't find her. Too bad, so sad." said Sabrina with a soft scoff and she walked off without hearing a reply from her husband.
Her golden brown hair glimmered underneath the Californian sun and the light illuminated her face, causing shadows to crease over her face from her scowl that was so infamous in Santa Catalina Island. Sabrina was somewhat worried about the boat that they had left by the Santa Barbara pier, worried that if they were gone long enough, someone would take their boat. That and infected were probably swarming the area. Her eyes of no sleep blinked wearily, but she tensed up at hearing the nearby snarls of infected.
Sabrina quickly followed after her husband as they rushed to a nearby alleyway and pressed against the damp, brick wall. Her sweaty grip on her pistol tightened as she heard the shuffling of feet and the screams of infected. For a minute, her ears were completely filled with their heavy breathing and the screams, but it was cut abruptly short, followed by the dragging of feet.
The brunette furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she gently grabbed her husband's sleeve and she nudged him towards where she originally heard the noise. The soft wail of a baby nearby caused her to feel eerie, pulling out her pistol, and Sabrina looked over at Matthew for reassurance.
In his eyes, she only saw cowardliness.
Sabrina walked around, checking each abandoned shop and home around State Street. Nothing, but the wails of the baby had grown closer and closer until she stumbled into a fashion boutique where the bathroom door was left ajar. Sabrina immediately threw it open with her pistol raised up, but she immediately lowered it when she saw a greying brunette cradling a newborn baby, umbilical cord cut and all.
Her eyebrows were furrowed in confusion and somewhat disgust as well. The greying brunette had a sweaty face and the newborn baby was wrapped in a sweater.
"Are-are you okay?" asked Sabrina, putting her pistol away, and she crouched down as her husband approached. She shooed him away with the wave of her hand and she looked back at the woman, her face still tense from labor. It was a bizarre sight to stumble upon. "What's your name?" asked Sabrina, hoping her tone was more reassuring than of condescending.
"Valeria. Valeria Windsor-Miller."
Miller. A sour taste had filled within Sabrina's mouth and she looked over at Matthew. Miller. As in Joel Miller? The supposed man who slaughtered an entire hospital that the Fireflies were in? Her husband's face had a grim impression on it and Sabrina gently took the newborn baby into her arms, carefully handing it off to Matthew. The brunette opened her backpack to grab out her med kit, but her face dropped at seeing veiny flesh sticking out.
She was bitten.
"You're infected." gasped Sabrina.
"But my baby isn't. He's..he's fine." said Valeria, her face was sickly pale.
Sabrina closed up her med kit and backpack, moving to stand on her feet despite the weakened pleas of the greying brunette. The middle aged woman shared a look with her cowardly husband and he covered the baby's ears with his large hands as she grabbed out her pistol. With a flash, the gunshot went off and the newborn baby's piercing cry for its mother had filled the air.
The wall had been splattered with a crimson red like vines down a tree and Sabrina sighed as she looked down at the chamber of her pistol.
"What do we do now?" asked Matthew, trying to calm down the shrieking baby which could've attracted clickers or any nearby infected.
"We take the baby and say the mother didn't make it." answered Sabrina, gently kicking Valeria's limp foot. "Deserves it though. After what our men been through, this is better than nothing. C'mon, we'll leave the body for the infected and take the baby back to Catalina Island."
With a nod, Matthew walked away with the baby cradled to his chest and Sabrina spat on the corpse before she slammed the door closed.
